Holger Czukay was once the bassist with the legendary experimental rock band Can. He is also the man who pioneered the use of audio clips as a musical instrument, predating the development of digital samplers by over a decade.

His solo releases are infrequent, but definitely instances of celebration for audiophiles in search of the strange.

SPACE.COM: As a sonic experimentalist, which instrument do you find to be the most unearthly?

CZUKAY: The rolling string of a ski lift. If you treat it as a space violin -- let's say with an electric saw machine -- that could make the passengers even forget a crash.

CZUKAY: Well, Annie Lennox from the Eurythmics was mentioning that already about my music. But when I should detect one of these spaceyard gangstas having not paid any publishing fee, I will come with the Space Police for cashing royalties. Uh, wait a minute, must search for my laser gun, the Big Bertha . . . found it. Now, ready for liftoff.

MP3 Samples

Tone Casualties makes two Holger Czukay songs available in the MP3 format: "Backup Dream" from the collaboration "Crash" and the title track of "Good Morning Story".

CZUKAY: Yes, I already was listening to such sources. The Chinese have done that already, thousands of years ago. At that time their music was a kind of interplanetary music score as they determined every note to the orbit of one of our planets.

SPACE.COM: What was the last scientific discovery that made you go "Wow!"?

CZUKAY: The free choice of obtaining a new head-by-head transplantation.

HOLGER CZUKAY VS. DR. WALKER: Clash (double CD on Tone Casualties)

This 1997 release features over 2-1/2 hours of live sonic duels between Czukay's quirky sense of experimentation and the ambient rave qualities of Dr. Walker (a/k/a Air Liquide). In 1996 they toured together, clashing onstage. This double CD documents that tour.

In a superb display of impromptu style (taking the concept of improvisation beyond heretofore experienced extremes), Czukay and Walker prepared their sonic palates separately, without consulting each other prior to stepping on-stage, resulting in a sense of surprise for all involved: musician and audience alike.

Although much of this music possesses an abstract appearance, there is a dense melodic sense lurking just at the edge of your consciousness, which frequently breaks through in outbursts of relentless and appealing e-perc rhythms.

It begins with atonal ambience bordering on industrial, then slowly evolves a percussive presence accented by shuddering short-wave rhythms. This mutates into a totally cool hard trance. Bass tones cavort with outer-space noises, while melodies sneakily punctuate the mix. And it just goes on and on . . . delivering tasty rhythm riffs and sample-heavy dark ambience.

There’s a video release from this awesome tour. You can find out info on this by visiting Czukay’s Web site.

HOLGER CZUKAY: Good Morning Story (CD on Tone Casualties)

This 1999 release displays a more playful side of Czukay's music. Here, the tunes are less atmospheric, with the emphasis on quirky soft rock.

Instrumentation involves a full spectrum, with dense bass, sinuous percussives, sneaky guitar, ghostly trumpet, real vocals and (of course) generous use of short-wave radio samples.

Half this 47-minute release is comprised of short, peppy rock tunes of particularly bizarre nature, with ever-shifting time signatures and wavering flow patterns. While the final half of the CD is "Mirage", a 22-minute piece of decidedly ambient mood, dense with lush electronic textures and haunted-house drones. "Mirage" also employs subtle (but dominant) applications of "forged ethno samples" which lend an ethereal World Beat edge to the liquid auralscape.

Overall, despite the genre or mood of the pieces, this music possesses a swaying sense of humor. The structures are cheerful and inventive, like the bold curiosity of a child in a magic shop.

Featured guests include Irmin Schmidt's keyboards, Jaki Liebezeit's drums, and Michael Karoli's guitar (all from Can), and Jah Wobble.

Of interesting note: the other Can personnel appear in sampled form, as Czukay digitally borrows sonic fragments and classic riffs from prime Can material for use in these fresh compositions. This technique produces remarkably lively tuneage, full of Can's familiar airs and signature rhythms.

Of further interest: this recording (particularly during "Mirage") features Czukay's first use of an ordinary sampler. It is quite strange to hear the man who pioneered sampling in the early '70s finally utilizing the resultant technology to achieve the same end. The main difference is an refinement of his ability to manipulate the borrowed snippets, enabling Czukay to fuse the samples into seamless sonic currents, where previously the flow had been more erratic, subject to jarring cuts.

HOLGER CZUKAY: La Luna (CD on Tone Casualties)

"La Luna" is an electronic night ceremony, a 47-minute piece of music recorded live at Czukay's lab in 1996. Although voices (for a brief lunar chant) are supplied by U-She, all other sounds are generated (or appropriated, since he is fond of sampling and processing short-wave radio broadcasts) by Czukay himself.

The music is basically ambient, although frequently possessing jarring and gritty elements.

Mixing astral softness with earthy tones, Czukay produces a lively auralscape that is deceptively atonal, hiding an eerie melodic quality. The electronic curtain shimmers with strangeness, frequently parting to reveal even stranger sounds. E-perc is applied in a quirkily rhythmic manner, intended more as punctuation than a vigorous tempo.

It is Czukay's style to fuse these overlapping textures into wholly new sounds and rhythms, achieving quite an industrial edge with his ambience. The music flows like some alien beast creeping through foreign shadows in search of some undefined target.

Compelling despite its non-intrusive nature, this music breaks barriers between brooding industrial and intellectual atmospheric genres.